Isn’t It Ironic

Life’s Funny Way of Sneaking Up On You

Beautiful weather in Toronto this week, but being touched by a bug, I couldn’t fully enjoy it. I had to cancel a WhatsApp call to Bolivia, another important meeting was cancelled at the last minute, and I’ve been dragging all week long. But (hooray!) a friend just popped in my office and gave me a bottle of maple syrup direct from his farm! How cool is that! Sweetness amidst the shadows.

I am reminded of the subtle juxtapositions in life that we all face—something that Alanis Morissette mused upon in her breakout album Jagged Little Pill:

Life has a funny way of sneaking up on you, Life has a funny way of helping you out…Helping you out

It’s like rain on your wedding day, It’s a free ride when you’ve already paid, It’s the good advice that you just didn’t take, Who would’ve thought…it figures. (Alanis Morissette from her song Ironic)

The yin and yang of life, the ups and downs, highs and lows, joys and sadness, success and failures, wins and losses, smiles and frowns, laughter and tears—all banging up against one another as we travel life’s highway. Or to put it another way, as we “climb our spiritual mountains.” Slipping and sliding, stepping three steps forward and two back, crisscrossing up and down, glacially inching (and I mean inching!) towards the summit.

Thomas Merton traversed the same crowded, messy road and he is considered a saint—from which I gain some encouragement. He writes,

When I am alone, Jesus is with me at once. I am “never less alone than when I am alone.” When people are around, I find it a little difficult to find Jesus. As soon as I am away from others, Jesus is there and all is peace. (Thomas Merton, A Life In Letters)

The challenge we face is to find the time and space to be alone so that we experience the Divine. To not always be jostled in the chaos. Perhaps a few moments of quiet to enjoy our pancakes sprinkled with blueberries and a dollop of fresh maple syrup direct from the Ontario woods.